Stalled

With the chaotic mundanity of being a stay at home parent with twin toddlers the doesnt sleep enough, I decided a couple of months ago to try my hand at carving wood pendants.

In my previous pre-parent life, I carved stone sculptures, and for a tome had done antique furniture repair, so the skill set is similar enough.

A local jewelry maker was selling her inventory out and had a bunch of wood cut into little discs and I bought a handful for a couple bucks, and started experimenting with my dremel. The next thing I knew, I bought the rest (about 100 pieces) and was motoring away at them averaging 4 pendants a day.

So, what to do with all these little trinkets? I decide early on to maybe try to sell them on etsy or through farmers markets or craft stalls.

Great! A little micro business i can do from home that is a healthy outlet, that won’t take from other hobbies in the future.

Cue going non stop for 18 hours a day or more with the kids/house/life/carving for almost two months straight (A few days downtime carving for appointments and illness etc. ) and I have a tidy amount of stock. So I’m prepared to open am online store!

And here I sit.

After doing all that hard work, inspired to keep carving, etsy account made, postal information on hand, and all I need to do is take pictures, write a description for each piece, post, shamelessly share it and cross my fingers.. or maybe toes because hands are handy.

The great machine has stalled.

It’s not the first time either… And there’s no answer as to why I do this to myself, but this time I’m admitting and addressing the silliness that it is.

Is it that I don’t like doing fiddly things? I obviously can commit to a point, know full well this isn’t a career and it’s more just for enjoyment with maybe some extra coin on the side. Worst case all my lived ones get pendants for Christmas, and I still got to carve stuff instead of cleaning and cooking and rearing children.

It’s not like carving stops when I do the store thing, or it’s that much extra responsibility to mail stuff off to customers. So… why?

This is the conundrum of my day, if anyone reads this and has suggestions, I’m open to them 🙂

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2 thoughts on “Stalled”

This might not be the answer, but it’s what I suspect is the cause anyway. It’s a fear of success. Whatever the official medical term is, I can’t remember, but I have it and Jo has it… it’s that little “nothing” that just won’t let us get to the next stage of whatever we’re working on. Once we’re past that point, things usually go smoothly for a while afterwards until the next hurdle, but getting over that anthill is like trying to scale Everest without any gear except maybe a watermelon… and a backpack full of cats to weigh your down as well. And that hurdle usually makes about as much sense, too.

Good luck, and if you find a way over (or around) the anthill, let us know!

It seems, for me that it’s the transition of fundamental tasks from a grand project to the fiddly stuff. Which also includes the transition between basic motivators.
I was carving as an outlet with the idea that maybe I could sell them, or not. At one point I got caught up in cost vs. Time per piece and what to charge, and I lost all creativity and motivation.
It took a week of stepping away and reframing it all back into a project that was for me to enjoy. Everything else being superfluous.

Now that I’ve come to that point again where money is the actual point, I’ve come to that standstill. Is it fear of success, or something different?
I’ve made money making stuff before, just not online. But what has never happened is how I view my ethical relationship with money, and my career based social definition of myself.
Many people are taught to define themselves as well as their worth through the chosen vocations.
As I’ve been slammed into dumb stay at home parent slot, many of these things have become even more apparent and engrained.
What is my value, socially, financially, personally?
Why are my motivators destroyed by opportunities to better my financial security?
Is it a fear of success, or a fear of confronting my own value in myself?
Maybe I think I deserve all I have, and maybe change is the hard part.
And there always the question of “what’s next?” So you start the online business. Then what? Hope. Flog your wears. Hope. Market. Sell if possible.. make more things. Deal with random issues repeat.
Or it fails and you carry on and everyone gets a random thing for Christmas they don’t like or want and you laugh about it a few years later